The Impact of Television: A Natural Experiment in Three Communities

"Does television affect its child and adult viewers, and if so, how? This question has provoked considerable controversy ever since TV first became widely available in the 1950s. Now that most people watch television regularly, the debate is even more difficult to resolve. Do light versus heavy viewers of television differ on some measure because they use television differently, and/or because they differ on some other important characteristic (e.g., intelligence)? Do they differ because they have been influenced by TV? Or is the process of influence transactional? This book describes the results of a large research project based on an unusual opportunity to address these kinds of issues--a natural experiment involving a non-isolated Canadian town which did not obtain TV reception until late 1973. We studied three communities on two occasions, just before one of the towns obtained television for the first time and again 2 years later. The book is not, however, merely a description of who was studied, when, how, and what was found. Our goal is to use this natural experiment to understand the processes involved in television's influence and the complexities of relationships between TV and human behavior"--Publisher description.